The Arctic is getting more and more vulnerable, UNEP
warns

"Sneaking"
road development and climate change is rapidly making the Arctic more
accessible to oil, gas and mineral exploration.

Tromsø, 13 August, 2002 - Sneaking road development and
less sea ice in a warming climate has opened up vast formerly in-accessible
land and sea corridors to industry, and may result in a new boom in Arctic
exploration for oil, gas and minerals. The Arctic is the last remaining
wilderness on Earth, but over 70% may be heavily disturbed by industry
in less than 50 years. Wildlife and indigenous people are particularly
vulnerable as they now face the combined threats of industrial development,
pollutants and climate change, warn UN scientists at an Arctic Parliamentary
Conference in Tromsø, Norway.

Comparison of sea-ice draft data acquired on submarine
cruises betwen 1993 and 1997 with data from 1958-1976 indicates
that mean ice draft at the end of the melt season has decreased
by 1,3 m (from 3,1 m to 1,8 m). Value is down by 40%

Sea-ice draft is the thickness of the part of the
ice that is submerged under the sea. Ice draft in the 1990s is over
a meter thinner than two to four decades erlier.

The Executive director of UNEP, Dr. Klaus Töpfer, presented some
of the findings of a new report on Global Environmental Change prepared
by UNEP together with several other UN agencies. The upcoming report presents
scenarios for biodiversity, security and indigenous people across the
globe as part of the new GLOBIO-project to help map the future consequences
of human expansions.

Less sea ice due to a warming climate and a rapidly bit-by-bit expanding
network has across the last 25 years now opened up large previously in-accessible
parts of the Arctic to industrial exploration.

"The fact that the resources of the Arctic are of extreme importance
and value for the outside world, but also that the Arctic's small population,
numbering less than 4 million people, cannot reap the economic and social
benefits from resource use, represent political and moral challenges.
There are needs for new sustainable strategies in place to control this
development", warns Topfer. "Many indigenous people and subsistence
based communities still rely heavily on reindeer and caribou, and like
the Saamiis, they may gradually lose more and more traditional land and
their incomes as a result of this bit-by-bit development".

Mr. Svein Tveitdal, director at UNEP's Key Polar Centre, in Norway GRID-Arendal
says: "Lack of strategic level planning of the expansion of the infrastructure
network is one of the largest threats to sustainable development anywhere
in the world. Many of the cumulative impacts on biodiversity and indigenous
people could have been avoided if strategic plans had been made at regional
scales. However, environmental regulations and governments focus on the
individual development projects that often are individually insignificant,
but collectively critical to the environment and indigenous people."

Climate change and road development is accelerating industrial development,
and is becoming a combined threat to many indigenous people in the North.
Examples include the Barents Sea and Northwestern Siberia, The Yukon territory
and Alaska's North Slope. While heavy debate has been conducted on the
fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the expansion of
the infrastructure network outside preserves in Alaska, Canada and Russia
has been overlooked.

Source: Result of questionnaires, Russian Association
of Peoples of the North (RAIPON)

"Two corridors - one from the Athabascan Lake through the Mackenzie
Delta in Yukon across the North Slope of Alaska, the other stretching
from the Norwegian coast in the Barents Sea to the Yamal Peninsula, are
both regions that are now becoming major entrance ports to the Arctic
wilderness for mining and oil companies", says Dr. Christian Nellemann
at UNEP/GRID-Arendal, global co-coordinator for the GLOBIO-project.

Continued growth at current rates in infrastructure, gas, oil, and mineral
extraction may, within 40-50 years, seriously impact wildlife populations
and ecosystems across 50-80% of the Arctic. Migratory species, like birds,
will carry the impacts with them far beyond the Arctic region. Furthermore,
the cumulative impacts are likely to affect many of the indigenous cultures
in the Arctic, which are depending upon natural resources for their traditional
lifestyles.

Many chemicals released to air or water by activities in Europe and North
America accumulate in the High North. Hazardous substances may lead to
genetic defects, and may result in metabolic changes, reduced fertility,
and cancer. Nervous systems and muscle functions may also be affected.
All in all, such pollutants may seriously affect the health and welfare
of entire Arctic communities.

The observed warmer climate with longer shipping seasons has lead to
a considerable interest in the Northern Sea Route for transportation.
Norway opened for natural gas and condensate production in the Barents
Sea in 2002, and oil production north of the Kola Peninsula is currently
underway.

The report points out, that while many of the larger oil companies may
have strict environmental regulations, the secondary more uncontrolled
bit-by-bit development of the road network associated with new economic
activity is the one that produces the greatest impacts on indigenous people
and wildlife through more increased access, recreational cabins, resorts,
roads, power lines, hydro power dams and wind mills for local electricity
supply, non-indigenous settlement and traffic.

Evolution and prognoses of the Infrastructure density and associated
impacted land areas (2000, 2030 and 2050)

Flora and fauna in an estimated 30% of the Barents Sea region is currently
impacted by anthropogenic development, ranging from 49% in Norway to 13%
in Russia. In less than 50 years, more than 90% may become impacted in
this region, making these areas largely unsuitable for traditional reindeer
husbandry.

The number of reindeer will have to be continuously reduced in an environment
with decreasing ranges to avoid overgrazing. At the same time, they are
also increasingly confronted with predator problems, as predators like
wolves (Canis lupus) and wolverines (Gulo gulo) are protected
according to international conventions, but extent of undisturbed areas
for both reindeer and predators is rapidly declining.

The fragmentation of Arctic habitats may, at the levels of development
predicted, seriously threaten biodiversity and ecosystem function. Considerable
scientific research in the 1990s confirm that fragmentation of landscapes
by infrastructure and related activities of human resource utilization
(logging, farming, mineral extraction etc.) directly result in reduced
productivity and survival of many species, and hence, in reduced species
richness.

Terrestrial infrastructure development may also substantially affect
aquatic systems not only by i.e. pollution, but also through increased
shipping and resource extraction in sea and freshwater ecosystems. Stream
and lake ecosystems are also affected through the building of dams, wetland
drainage, channelization, and groundwater exploitation. This will impact
fish, invertebrates, sea mammals, and other organisms through increased
harvesting or disturbance. Infrastructure therefore causes impacts far
beyond those effects directly induced by the physical footprint of the
roads.

Note to editors:

The report "Global Environmental Change - Environment and security
2000-2050" will be released in full after the WSSD in Johannesburg.
This press release contains some of the findings related to the Arctic
of the report.

The Arctic GLOBIO report from 2001 is available at www.globio.info,
where also maps and graphics can be downloaded. GLOBIO: Global Methodology
for Mapping Human Impacts on the Biosphere.

The Arctic comprises of the Arctic Sea, the northern territories of North
America, Greenland, Iceland, the northern part of Scandinavia and the
northern part of the Russian Federation.